


under the right circumstances, i'd fight for you

by lamisdelabc



Series: Something on Ice [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: AU Professional Athletes, F/M, Gen, Ice Skating, M/M, Multi, i just like les mis and writing, ice DANCING technically, take this with a grain of salt i was a swimmer and a theatre kid i know nothing about ice skating, this is the first of potentially many, Éponine and Enjolras are stubborn and hot headed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-09-25 02:26:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9798371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamisdelabc/pseuds/lamisdelabc
Summary: Depending on who you ask, Éponine and Montparnasse are the best ice dancing duo in the world. Depending on who you ask, Cosette and Enjolras are the best ice dancing duo in the world. No matter who you ask, the two duos are enemies, and have been going head to head since the beginning of time. When misfortune and criminal activity put Cosette and Montparnasse out of competition, Éponine and Enjolras are left partnerless- unless they partner with each other.





	1. Chapter 1

“Miss Thenardier! How does it feel to be the biggest scandal in the ice skating world since Harding and Kerrigan?”

“This is the _ice skating world,_ how big does any scandal really get?” Eponine says, taking a drink from the bottle of water in front of her. “Next question.” 

“Have you spoken to Montparnasse since the trial?” 

Eponine scowls, and Grantaire shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “No comment,” he says.

“Yeah,” Eponine mutters, “funnily enough, my drug lord ex-boyfriend has no comments for me.” 

Grantaire glares at her. “Next question,” he directs to the press.

“Miss Thenardier, are you going to make a comeback?”

Eponine blinks, and then smiles. “A comeback, Miss….?”

“Josephs.” 

“Miss Josephs, I ask you, who is the most relevant person in the ice skating world today?” Éponine arches an eyebrow. Before the reporter can answer, she continues. “I am. I can’t make a comeback if I never left. Press conference over.” She smiles dangerously, stands up, and, ignoring the yelling of the reporters and the flashing of the cameras, walked off the stage and out of the room. 

“You could at least give me some heads up before you tank a press conference,” Grantaire snaps, half an hour later when he finally makes it to the car. 

“They pissed me off,” Éponine says simply, dropping her cigarette on the pavement and grinding it out with the heel of her boot. 

“Everyone pisses you off,” Grantaire says. “And you shouldn’t be smoking where they can get pictures of you. The last thing we need is _another_ scandal on our hands.”

“They can’t get pictures of me if I’m hiding behind your car,” Éponine says, “and smoking cigarettes isn’t illegal.” 

“Certainly doesn’t look good, though,” says Grantaire. “Get in the car.”

Éponine obliges, and Grantaire turns the engine. “You know, I’m trying really hard to rebuild our image here, but you’re making it really difficult with all the rebellious behavior.” 

Éponine barks a laugh. “I’m sorry, did the pot just call the kettle black? You can hardly scold me for rebellious behavior when you decked Montparnasse.” 

“That was different. It was warranted. He had just been found with two kilos of cocaine in his equipment bag. I was allowed to deck him.” 

“Whatever,” Éponine says. 

“Éponine,” Grantaire sighs, flicking on his turn signal as they pulled up to a traffic light, “if you want to get back out there competing, you have to start behaving like it. It’s not enough that we passed the drug tests when the rest of our team didn’t. Brujon, Babet, and Claquesous were all caught in that raid, and they all failed their tests, in addition to Mont. People still don’t trust us. They think there’s no way that we didn’t know about the warehouse, and what those idiots were doing behind closed doors, and frankly, _they have a point._ But I am trying _really hard_ to paint us in a positive light. We look suspicious, though, and we’re going to look suspicious until you _get your act together and start cooperating._ ” 

“What does it matter?” Éponine snaps. She hesitates. She doesn’t want to admit what’s on both of their minds: _partnerless._ “I’m not entering as a solo. I’m done, R.” 

“Not quite,” Grantaire says, smiling to himself. 

“What?” Éponine whips her head to look at him. “What do you mean, ‘not quite?’”

“I mean I’ve been doing some talking, and I think I’ve found you a new partner.”

 

x

 

 

“Drink,” Combeferre orders, appearing alongside Courfeyrac in the gym. “You’re going to dehydrate yourself if you don’t.” He tosses a waterbottle at Enjolras, who catches it and sheds his boxing gloves.

“Well,” Courfeyrac says, giving the boxing bag a heavy shove, “I’m glad you’ve moved on from beating yourself up to beating up inanimate objects.” 

Enjolras glares at him, and took a drink. “I don’t want to get out of shape. When Cosette comes back I have to be ready to compete, and I won’t be ready if I don’t keep training.” 

“Training includes being on the ice and practicing with a partner, E,” Courfeyrac says. 

“If there’s a partner willing to train with me,” Enjolras says. 

“The issue is not lack of partners,” Courfeyrac says, “it’s your unwillingness to train with any of them. There are plenty of girls who would kill to skate with you.” 

“I want to skate with Cosette,” Enjolras says.

“Which brings me to our next issue,” says Courfeyrac. “Cosette’s x-rays came back.” He shares an uneasy look with Combeferre, and Enjolras narrows his eyes. 

“And?” he asks. “I thought we agreed that it isn’t a career ending injury. She’s going to rehab, and she’ll be back on the ice in no time. So, we might miss Nationals, but who cares? The Board knows who we are, they know what we’re capable of, and there’s no way they’ll leave us off the roster for Worlds.” 

Combeferre steps forward, and Enjolras stops in his tracks. “It appears,” he says, delicately, “that Cosette’s injury is not entirely what we thought it was.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Enjolras demands.

“Cosette’s hip isn’t fractured, Enj,” Combeferre says. “It’s shattered.” 

Enjolras takes a deep breath, runs his hands through his hair, and throws a punch at the boxing bag. “Dammit!” he shouts. 

“Told you he would take it like this,” Courfeyrac mutters to Combeferre.

Enjolras rests his forehead against the bag, taking several deep breaths. _Cosette’s hip, shattered, and his fault._ It’s several moments before he regains himself and turns back around, his face a mask of composure. “How long until she’s back on the ice?” Combeferre and Courfeyrac share another uneasy look. “Well?” Enjolras demands. “How long?”

Courfeyrac hesitates, and stares uncomfortably at a spot on the wall behind Enjolras. 

“This is a career ending injury,” Combeferre finally says.

There’s a moment of agonizing silence, while the word that nobody is willing to say hangs in the air. _Partnerless._  

“Is she going to be okay?” Enjolras finally whispers. “Will she be able to walk again? Will she—will she and Marius be able to have kids? Oh, _God._ ”

“She’ll walk again,” Combeferre says. “It’ll be a long road to healing, but she’ll be okay.” 

Enjolras closed his eyes, and sank down to the mat. “This is my fault,” he says. “I shouldn’t have agreed to do the lift. She said she was ready, but I knew we couldn’t pull it off, and I went through with it anyway.” 

“This isn’t your fault, Enjolras,” Courfeyrac says. “Cosette doesn’t blame you, she blames herself. Accidents happen, you guys couldn’t be perfect every time.”

“There’s a difference between messing up a lift and messing up someone’s entire life, Courf,” Enjolras says. “Her career is over, because of me.”

“There’s nothing we can do about that now, though, Enjolras. We have to focus on your career.” 

“ _My_ career? My career is over, too!”

Courfeyrac bites his lip. “Well,” he says, “maybe it’s not."

Enjolras lifts his head, and raises his eyebrows. “My partner is permanently off the ice, because I dropped her. We didn’t even get the chance to go to the Olympics, Courf. We had so much _time,_ and now _she’s never going to skate again,_ and you’re telling me that my career _isn’t_ over?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

“What is your magic solution, then? I’d love to hear it.”

Courfeyrac grins, and Enjolras immediately recognizes it as the kind of grin that accompanies only Courfeyrac’s most outlandish ideas. “I know somebody else who’s looking for a partner.”

 

x

 

 

“This is an awful idea,” Éponine says. “You want me to skate with _my mortal enemy?_ No way. Not happening." 

“Beggars can’t be choosers, Éponine,” Grantaire sings, putting the car in park. “Besides, this is _ice skating,_ not _Harry Potter._ You don’t have a ‘mortal enemy.’”

“Well if I did, it would be _him._ They beat us at Skate America last year, when we _clearly_ should have won _._ ”

“They beat you at the Skate America last year because they didn’t fuck up their lifts during the short program, not because they’re evil incarnate.”

“ _I_ did not fuck up our lifts during the short program. _Montparnasse_ fucked up our lifts during the short program.”

“But you know who didn’t fuck up his lifts during the short program? _Enjolras._ ”

“Doesn’t stop him from being my mortal enemy.”

“Whatever,” Grantaire says, rolling his eyes. “We’re going to go meet with Enjolras and his choreographer. We’re going to have coffee, and we’re going to discuss the options. Nothing is for sure, yet. Just give him a chance.”

“What don’t you understand about _mortal enemy?_ ”

“This is your only option, ‘Ponine!” Grantaire says, throwing his hands in the air. “Either you partner with Enjolras, or you don’t compete. In case you’ve forgotten, people _still don’t trust you._ One half of the best ice dancing duo in the world just went down in a cocaine bust, and the other walked out unscathed? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: it seems unbelievable. You’re lucky to even have this shot.”

“ _I’m lucky?_ ” Éponine demands. “He’s the lucky one! Cosette was never a threat to me, I could dance circles around her! He should be begging me to skate with him.”

“I wouldn’t be so cocky,” Grantaire chastised. “Cosette was a brilliant skater, and even you have to admit that.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that we beat them at Worlds last year.”

“Or the fact that they beat you at Skate America.”

“We won Nationals.”

“They won Worlds before that.”

“Fine!” Éponine says, slamming her hands on the dashboard. “We’ll go in there, we’ll talk, and when it doesn’t work out, you owe me a drink.”

“Deal,” Grantaire turns off the car with an air of finality. “Let’s go.”

Éponine grumbled, but opened the door to get out of the car.

“And ‘Ponine?” Grantaire calls, following her. “Try not to fall in love with this one.”

Éponine scoffs. “Fat chance. Blondes who like boys aren’t exactly my type.”

 

x

 

“I hate this idea,” Enjolras says, glaring daggers at Courfeyrac as they head towards the Café Musain. “How can we even trust her? Doesn’t it seem _at all_ suspicious to you that her partner and boyfriend, not to mention her doctor, her costumer, and her choreographer all get busted for coke, and she walks away from it all with only a bruised reputation? There’s no way she didn’t know about that warehouse.”

“I’ve known R forever, Enj, I told you,” Courfeyrac says, typing out a text message. “And he says they weren’t involved. If he says it, I believe it.”

“I still don’t like the idea of skating with her,” Enjolras says. “We have completely different styles.”

“No you don’t, that was a dumb excuse.”

“She won’t even want me as a partner.”

“But she has to acknowledge that you’re good, Enj. You’re better than Montparnasse, and she’s better than Cosette.” Courfeyrac holds up a finger to silence Enjolras when he starts to interrupt. “Don’t deny it, you know it’s true. She’s easily the best girl out there, and you’re the best guy. That’s why you’ve always been at each other’s throats.”

“That still doesn’t change the fact that I dropped my partner and broke her hip, nobody will want to skate with me now.”

“Please, Enjolras, let’s just give this a shot,” Courfeyrac says. “It’s just coffee. Let’s just _talk_ before we even freak out about partners.”

“ _Fine._ But when this goes belly up, you owe me a drink.”

“Deal.”

 

x

 

Éponine and Grantaire are already seated when Enjolras and Courfeyrac arrive at the crowded Café. It’s the lunch rush, and the pair wave at Musichetta, who’s she tending the counter. A few heads turn, either because ice skating has been receiving ten times as much attention as it normally does, given the fact that the two best teams in the country are both being rocked by scandal at the same time, or because Enjolras is simply that beautiful that he _turns heads._ Either way, it irritates Éponine. The two make their way to a table nestled into the back corner, where she and Grantaire are sitting in stony silence over cups of coffee. She is glaring at her phone, angrily typing out a text message and determinedly not looking up as Enjolras and Courfeyrac approach. Grantaire, on the other hand, smiles and stands, extending a hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you outside of competition, Enjolras,” he says, shaking his hand. Enjolras can’t help but notice that his hands are soft, and that he doesn’t altogether hate the feeling of it. “I’m very impressed with your talent.”

Enjolras smiles. “The pleasure is mine, Grantaire. You do great work with Éponine and Montparnasse.”

Grantaire nods his head in thanks, and shakes Courfeyrac’s hand. “Courfeyrac, I presume?”

“That’s me,” Courfeyrac says, beaming, “resident choreographer and publicist. Thrilled to meet you.”

The three look at Éponine, who is still focusing intently on her phone, and has yet to show any acknowledgement of Enjolras and Courfeyrac’s presence.

“’Ponine,” Grantaire mutters, nudging her leg with his foot. “Say hello.”

She rolls her eyes but stands up, tossing her ponytail over her shoulder and dropping her phone on the table. “What’s the point in introductions?” she says, looking Enjolras up and down. “We know each other, under no pleasant circumstances, and now these two buffoons are trying to make us partners.”

“I told you this would go well,” Enjolras mutters to Courfeyrac.

“Éponine!” Grantaire hisses at her.

“Right, sorry,” she rolls her eyes again and offers a hand to Enjolras, who takes it. “Éponine Thenardier. World champion. I’m not used to seeing you from this height, normally I’m one step above you on the podium.”

Enjolras accepts her handshake with his characteristic grace, but for a moment they have a battle of wills, testing who has the firmer handshake, until he flashes her a brilliant smile and lets go. “Yes, you’re much shorter in this position. But last time we met, as you’ll recall, _I_ was the one on top of the podium.”

Éponine scowls and takes her hand back, sitting back down and crossing her legs. The others take their cue from her, and they take their seats.

“You won the European Championships,” she says. “We won Nationals last year, _and_ Worlds.”

“We won Worlds the year before, and the Grand Prix Championship this year.”

Éponine narrows her eyes and opens her mouth to respond, but Grantaire cuts in before she can. 

“We get the point. You’re at a tie. Eight and eight wins in the past two years of competition. That makes you two parts of the most successful French ice dancing teams in history, and World Champions.” They’re interrupted by a waitress bringing over drinks for Enjolras and Courfeyrac, and Enjolras smiles at Chetta’s foresight to send over their usuals without even asking. The waitress hovers for a moment, clearly intrigued, but leaves when the tension surrounding the foursome becomes intolerable.

“You’re both excellent,” Courfeyrac says. “There’s no question there. In two different pairs, you’ve been dominating the ice for the past two years. Worlds, Nationals, Four Continents, the Grand Prix, you’ve got titles in all of them.”

Grantaire stirs his Bloody Mary with a celery stick, and looks up. “But neither of you have the Olympics.”

Éponine sucks in a breath, and balls her napkin in her fist. Of course Grantaire would bring up the thing that stung most about Montparnasse’s mistake—the fact that they’d never had the chance to compete on the greatest athletic stage in the world. She’d used to think about it constantly; they would wow the judges with a spectacular dance, and they would win gold. Enjolras and Cosette would have to admit that she and Montparnasse were the better pair, and their rivalry would be put to bed. She and Montparnasse would have amazing sex in a hotel room in Russia, and would spend their free days exploring the city and supporting their team. In the weeks since Montparnasse’s arrest, and the high-profile trial, the question on everybody's mind (including Éponine's) had been: "What about the Olympics?" It hovered in the press room, always at the front of every reporter's lips, while Éponine tried desperately to shove it to the back of her mind. Now, when she's finally beginning to reconcile herself with the fact that she will never be the Olympian she hoped and dreamed of being, Grantaire drags it to the forefront of her mind again, and Éponine wants to dump her latte over his head.

She takes a deep breath instead, and narrows her eyes. “You can’t possibly expect me to come out on top of this year’s circuit with somebody I’ve spent my entire life competing against, not with. It took ‘Parnasse and I _twelve years_ to get to our level of comfort with each other. We haven’t even skated together for twelve minutes.”

“I’m not really inclined to agree with anything Éponine says,” Enjolras says, folding his arms over his chest, “but she has a point. We’ve never skated together. We can’t beat pairs that have lifetimes of experience with each other in the national circuit, let alone the _global._ ”

“If you’re really as good as everyone thinks you are, you’ll be able to skate with each other,” Courfeyrac says. Enjolras glares at him, and he raises his hands in defense. “I’m just stating the truth.”

There’s a moment of silence where everyone drinks their coffee, and Enjolras seems to weigh his options. Éponine holds her breath, wondering if he’ll make her decision for her.

“Fine,” he finally says. “I’m in.” Courfeyrac beams, Grantaire nods, Éponine hides her face in her hands, but Enjolras doesn’t smile. “But I’m only one half of this duo. Éponine?”

His prompt is met by silence, Éponine can feel the gazes of the three boring into her skull.

“I don’t know,” she mumbles. “I don’t like it.”

“The entire world’s eyes are on you!” Grantaire snaps. “Everyone is waiting to see what happens, because in case it’s escaped your notice, _both_ of you have been dethroned. The way I see it, you have two options: you can either partner with each other, and become the best skating duo the world has ever seen, or you can throw in the towel and be done before your careers even take off.”

There’s a nasty silence where Éponine and Grantaire glare daggers at each other. Fights like this haven’t been uncommon in the stress of the last few weeks, but Éponine is determined not to lose this one. The question, she knows, is which side of this fight is the losing side. 

“Éponine,” Grantaire says, his tone softening. “I know what you’ve given up to get here. Do you want to throw it all away before you ever get the chance you’ve been working for your whole life?”

“Grantaire,” Éponine levels, “if it were _anybody_ other than _him._ ”

“You don’t have much of a choice,” Enjolras says. A muscle in his jaw twitches, and Éponine notes that it’s the same muscle that twitches whenever she finds herself above him on the podium. It gives her a wicked stab of satisfaction to know that she’s gotten to him, however petty she knows she’s being. “People aren’t exactly lining up to be your partner, given that they still think you’re guilty of being part of an international drug smuggling ring, and you’ve fought with the press about this at every chance.”

“I had no idea about the cocaine _,_ ” Éponine growls. “And you can’t blame me for being testy with the press. How would you feel, if your idiot ex-partner and boyfriend disgraced you?”

“You need me,” Enjolras ploughs forward, ignoring her bait, and Éponine grinds her teeth. “Cosette and I were the golden couple. Yes, you and Montparnasse were an excellent duo, but we both know that there’s only so far that being edgy can take you.”

“Are you saying I can’t skate?”

“On the contrary, I’m saying you’re an incredible skater. As good as Cosette—”

“Better,” Grantaire interjects. “In case you haven’t noticed, Éponine didn’t fall and shatter her hip.” Éponine gives him a small smile; this is his way of apologizing for their brief spat, and she appreciates the compliment.

Enjolras pauses for a second, and Courfeyrac leans across the table to rest a hand atop of his.

“That’s beside the point,” he says, his voice controlled and even when he finally continues. “Cosette had an accident, and there’s nothing that can be done about it. The point is that we make up the better halves of our respective duos. In theory, if we skated together, we would be unbeatable.”

Éponine chews on her lip, staring at the latte in front of her. He isn’t wrong about that—she’d be lying if she said Montparnasse was a better skater than Enjolras. Comparable, certainly, but better? Not a chance. She’d spent too much time examining their losses to Enjolras and Cosette not to realize where the problems lie—Enjolras’s technique, Enjolras’s strength, Enjolras’s Golden Boy charm. Montparnasse never could quite match up, and with him now out of the picture, she would be a fool not to take the opportunity to skate with Enjolras.

“Well?” Courfeyrac asks, and she flicks her eyes up to meet Grantaire’s. Grantaire, who would never make her do anything she didn’t want to do, but who desperately wants her to continue. Who feels awful about the drug bust, who blames himself for no reason, who’s always been her biggest fan.

“I’m in.”

Courfeyrac beams, if possible, even wider, and rubs his hands together. “Brilliant! Here’s the address of our rink, meet tomorrow at seven in the weight room. We’ll start in the gym before we move to the ice.”

“Make it eight,” Éponine says. “I have to take my brother to school.”

“Eight it is! I have to tell the rest of our team that we’re back on. And should I schedule a press conference? Enjolras, meet me at the car!” Without another word, Courfeyrac is out of his chair and hurrying through the café, already dialing someone’s number on his phone.

“Excitable,” Éponine remarks.

“Well,” Enjolras says, awkwardly. “I hope this works out.” He offers his hand to Grantaire, who shook it, and then to Éponine.

She meets his eyes, and can tell that even if this scenario isn’t what either of them truly want, he’s at least genuine. “Me too,” she says, taking his hand. She’s surprised to find she’s not entirely lying.

“I’ll see you at eight,” he says, standing from the table and swinging his jacket around his shoulders. “Don’t be late, we’ve only got twelve years to catch up on.” With the barest hint of a smile, he follows Courfeyrac out the door, and leaves Grantaire and Éponine alone at the table.

“You know what, R?” Éponine says, smirking into her latte.

“What?” he asks.

“I don’t think we have to worry about me falling in love with this one."

"Why's that? Because he's a bit of an arrogant prick?"

"Nope. Because you just couldn’t keep your eyes off him.”

 

x

 

“She’s late,” Enjolras says, throwing a punch at the boxing bag. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

“You were all for it yesterday,” Courfeyrac calls from where he’s lounging on the assisted pull-up machine. “Have a positive attitude, please. Smiles make the world go ‘round!” 

“I’m late by one minute,” Éponine says, suddenly appearing. “Are you going to punch me? Because I’ll tell you right now that that won’t fly.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes, but strips off his gloves and steps off the mat. “It’s how I like to warm up. And I don’t like latecomers.”

“There was traffic on my way here, and I thought I was at the wrong place when I walked in and saw a million hockey players. I thought we had the gym this morning. Isn’t it a bad idea for a bunch of people to see us working together before anything’s official?”

“We’re sharing with the Rangers,” Courfeyrac says. “They’re nice guys.”

“One of them asked me to hook him up with some coke on my way in.”

“Most of them are nice guys.”

“Anyway,” Enjolras interrupts. “Hockey team aside, can we start? Where’s Grantaire?”

Éponine shrugs off her jacket and stretches her arms over her head. “He said he’d meet us in a bit. I think he’s hungover.”

Enjolras frowns. “It’s Tuesday.”

“Let’s leave the judgement to the panelists at Nationals, okay? I’m here now, and Grantaire will be here soon and he’ll want to get us right on the ice. So, let’s do some dancing, let’s do some lifting, and let’s make this work.”

“Glad to see you have such a positive attitude, Éponine!” Courfeyrac says. “What did I tell you about smiles, Enjolras? Let’s get started.”

As far as just working out goes, Enjolras figures it could have been worse. Éponine is stronger than Cosette, and is terrifyingly adept at using his body like a jungle gym for lifts, and her technique is near flawless. Her whole team might have a reputation for volatility and drunkenness, but there was doubt that she’s devoted herself to her training for years, and it has certainly paid off. By the time Grantaire shows up in the gym Enjolras is sweating from trying to keep up with her, and she doesn't even have a hair out of place.

“Look at you two, working as a team,” Grantaire croons, appearing next to Courfeyrac while Enjolras and Éponine are practicing a lift. “Enjolras, you better not lift her without your knees in proper position, and your left foot is sickled.”

“It won't be when it's in a skate,” Enjolras growls, but makes the correction nonetheless.

“Sloppy technique on the floor translates into sloppy technique on the ice,” Grantaire says. “I’m your coach now, and I do not tolerate sloppiness.”

This seems a tad like hypocrisy to Enjolras, given that Grantaire himself is wearing a paint stained tee shirt, and appears not to have shaved in several days. He looks to Courfeyrac for help, but Courfeyrac says nothing. “Why were you late?” he asks.

“Hangover,” Grantaire shrugs. “I needed a lie in.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes. “Good to see you lot take this about as seriously as the rest of your team. You know, the ones now serving time in prison for cocaine possession.”

Grantaire narrows his eyes, and takes a step forward. Enjolras stands to meet him, his arms crossed over his chest. “Listen, Apollo, you were all for this yesterday, but now you’re determined to talk back to me? I don’t know if you’re not a morning person, or what your deal is, but if you have a problem with the way I coach my skaters, you can get out. Because our eight titles seem to say that I’m doing something right.”

“Your ex-skater charged with a felony seems to say otherwise.”

For a second it seems like Grantaire might hit Enjolras, but instead he shakes his head, and steps back. “One hundred push-ups. Proper form. _Now._ ”

Éponine smirks from behind him, and adjusts her splits to stretch her right leg.

“You too, ‘Ponine! Let’s go, I want you on the ice in ten minutes!” It’s Enjolras’s turn to smirk this time, as Éponine makes an indignant noise.

“What the hell did I do?” she cries. “R!”

“You’re a team, now,” he says. “When one of you is in trouble, both of you are in trouble.”

Éponine shoots a glare at Enjolras, but rolls to her stomach to start her push-ups.

 

x

 

On the ice, Enjolras begrudgingly has to admit that Grantaire has done phenomenal work in training Éponine. He’d spent long hours with Valjean and Cosette by his side, watching and comparing performance tapes, and he had always known that Éponine had the edge when it came to technique, but now, finally working with her first hand, he’s forced to say out loud that, no matter how much he loves Cosette, Éponine is undoubtedly better than her, and that the two of them working together made perfect sense.

Would make perfect sense, if they could get past the fact that it was each other.

“Come on, Éponine!” Grantaire shouts from the side of the rink. “You’ve been doing this lift since you were thirteen years old!” 

Enjolras offers her his hand, but she pushes herself up from the ice on her own.

“I’m not used to him!” Éponine shouts back. “I’ve been skating with Montparnasse for years; I know exactly where to put my hands! Enjolras is different!”

Enjolras feels that this is a poorly disguised way of saying she doesn’t want to work with him, but he grits his teeth and straightens his shoulders nonetheless.

“Let’s just give it another go,” he says. “It’s a simple lift, but it’s essential. We can’t do any acrobatics until we get down the basics together.”

Courfeyrac comes to a stop next to them, and rests a hand on each of their shoulders.

“I know this isn’t going as well as we hoped,” he says, “but I know you both are capable of this. Éponine, reach farther with your right hand to get around Enjolras’s shoulders. Enjolras, your stance is too wide. Éponine is smaller than Cosette, you don’t need quite as much power to lift her.” He gives them each a smile, then skates off to join Grantaire at the edge of the ice.

“Again!” Grantaire shouts. “Go!”

“I swear to God,” Éponine mutters, but takes Enjolras’s hand nonetheless. “If you drop me again, I’ll—”

“I wouldn’t drop you if you’d trust me,” Enjolras mutters back.

It’s not that the lift is hard, it’s that they’re not in sync, and even the most clueless spectator could tell. It’s too apparent that they’ve never done this together in the way their feet are not moving at the same time, and when Éponine puts her skate on Enjolras’s leg, his knees aren’t bent and his stance is too wide. Her right hand reaches for his shoulder, misses, and they both go tumbling to the ice.

“Dammit!”

“Again!” Grantaire shouts from the side, ruthless.

“No!” Éponine shouts back. “Not again, no more! This isn’t working, let’s just admit it!”

“Why are you so determined for this to go up in flames?” Enjolras snaps, finally losing his composure. “I know your last partner was an asshole, but why can’t we just try to make this work?”

“Don’t call Montparnasse an asshole!” she rounds on him. “You didn’t even know him!”

“Éponine, the guy sold cocaine, jeopardized your career, and broke your heart! How can you defend him?”

“People make mistakes!”

“A mistake is fucking up your lifts at Skate America. Being part of an international drug ring is not a mistake—it’s a conscious decision to ruin your own career, and everyone else’s around you.”

“You don’t know anything about what happened,” Éponine says, low and dangerous, and Enjolras isn’t sure what makes him say what he says next, but he does it anyway.

“You were in on it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Just tell me the truth. Were you in on the drug deals, or are you just so oblivious that you ignored the fact that he almost ruined your entire life?”

“How dare you?” she hisses. “How dare you accuse me of that?” Enjolras thinks Éponine might hit him, but then she turns her back, and skates for the door. “This isn’t going to work,” she calls, not looking back.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Grantaire yells as Enjolras joins him and Courfeyrac at the edge of the ice.

“She got on my nerves,” Enjolras says, grinding his teeth.

“She’s Éponine Thenardier, she gets on everyone’s nerves! It’s what she does!”

“You’re getting on my nerves, too, frankly!”

“Stop that, Enjolras,” Courfeyrac says, putting a hand on his chest. “Everyone’s a little high strung right now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make this work. We’ll call it a day, and get back at it tomorrow morning.”

Enjolras wants to knock the persistent optimism right out of Courfeyrac’s curly head.

 

x

 

“Vodka and cranberry,” Éponine tells the bartender, who’s kind enough not to comment on the fact that this is her third appearance this week. “Whatever’s cheapest.”

“Actually, make that two, with Grey Goose,” says a voice behind her. “Drinks are on me.”

“In that case, make it a double,” Éponine says, and Enjolras slides into the seat next to her. “What do you want?”

“To apologize,” Enjolras says. “I shouldn’t have accused you of being in on Montparnasse’s drug ring. I watched the news report a hundred times, I saw the look on your face when they searched his bag, and when they arrested him. Nobody’s that good of an actor. You had no idea, did you?”

Éponine shakes her head, then buries it in her hands. When she resurfaces Enjolras isn’t watching her, and whether it’s out of respect or out of shame, she doesn’t care, because it makes him like her a little more. The bartender returns with their drinks, and they clink glasses before taking a sip.

“That’s what makes it hurt so bad, you know?” she finally whispers. “I loved him. I’ve known Montparnasse longer than anyone my entire life, and I thought I knew him inside out. We were in love. We were partners. I could tell from just the slightest movement which way I was supposed to go. We were totally in sync, and then one day the police bust open the door to the rink, and cuff him before he can even take his skates off. He’d been lying to me for _years,_ and I had no idea. My whole _team_ had been lying to me for years, and I had no idea. The press, my fans, everyone’s so determined to call me Nancy Kerrigan, and him Tonya Harding, because I just got caught up in this mess. He’s the one who fucked up. But maybe if I had known better, this wouldn’t have blown up in our faces. Maybe I’m the one who ruined this for us.”

Enjolras shakes his head, and pats her back. “It’s his fault,” he says. “And things are over for you and Montparnasse. That’s the truth, and I’ve never been one to sugarcoat things. But you’re too good to let your career end. We can be really good together.”

Éponine scoffs. “If today was any indication, we’re a long way from ‘really good.’”

“Today doesn’t mean shit,” Enjolras says. “That’s not a true testament to our abilities, because I fucked the lift up on purpose.”

Éponine almost chokes on her drink. “Excuse me?”

Enjolras takes a deep breath, and when he releases it he looks at her. “I fucked up the lift on purpose,” he says again.

“Why would you do that? I thought you wanted this to work! You’re the one that said you wanted to keep skating!”

“Because I was scared,” he says. “Cosette didn’t fall—she’s too good for that. I dropped her. We thought it was just a fracture, and that she’d recover and we’d be back on the ice by next season. But when the x-rays came back they showed her hip was shattered, and I blame myself entirely. I fucked up the lifts today because I didn’t trust myself. I’m scared, because I made a mistake once and I could make it again. But I’m telling you this now because I want to skate with you, and if we’re going to have the kind of trust it takes to be the best, then it has to start with complete honesty. You opened up to me, so I’m opening up to you.”

Éponine is speechless, her drink hovering halfway between the bar and her mouth. After a moment’s thought she sets it down, closes her mouth, and shakes her head.

When she speaks, it’s quiet. “Thank you.”

Enjolras nods, and they finish their drinks in silence.

“Tomorrow morning, at eight, we’re going to be at the gym,” Éponine says. “We’re going to work our asses off for the next four months, because we’re competing at Nationals _as a team,_ and we’re going to win.”

Enjolras smiles, and claps one hand on her shoulder. “Another round, please!”

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

It’s remarkable how quickly they become friends after that. Enjolras doesn’t know if it’s their skill, their drive, or an actual emotional connection, but four weeks feel like four years, and it’s hard for him not to be optimistic about the rapidly approaching Grand Prix circuit. Sure, they’re up against a lot of other really good duos, all of which have been practicing their programs for longer than Enjolras and Éponine have even been on the same team, but dancing with her feels like second nature, and they have a unique advantage of everything they do being brand new, and the judges having no prior opinions about their pair.

That’s not to say they don’t have their difficulties. There’s a comfort between them, but there’s also the daunting task of meshing together their two very different styles, and some days it feels more impossible than others. For every perfectly executed step sequence, there are two that’re horribly off, and make everyone want to snap at each other. When Éponine is two steps ahead of him because she refuses to count at the speed of a normal person and skates faster than just about any ice dancer he’s ever met, he feels like calling it quits. He can feel the tension in her muscles every time his hands fall at the wrong place for a lift, because he’s use to a body just slightly taller, and he knows it’s taking everything in her to not walk off the ice. It’s trying, there are moments when he could kill Courfeyrac for even suggesting this, but it works.

Their lives begin to blend together off the ice too. They go out for coffee during rehearsal breaks, and Éponine spends time at Enjolras’s apartment, reading over his books and stretching on his floor while he makes tea. When she has to go to the court to testify in the trial against her old costumer, Enjolras shows up to accompany Gavroche to school, bearing croissants from his favorite bakery. They have inside jokes and Enjolras knows her coffee order; Musichetta starts keeping her favorite kind of Luna bars stocked in the training room, and she begins to thaw around the other skaters who share the rink with them. Their friendship is easy, so much so that reporters and avid fans begin to grow suspicious.

They have yet to announce their partnership to the world, because Courfeyrac says he wants at least one routine down flawlessly before the press start hounding them for questions, but that doesn’t stop people from speculating. They get comments on their Instagrams asking if they’re dating, if they’re working together, what’s happened to Cosette, and they ignore all of them because Courfeyrac says radio silence on the subject is the best approach.

But there are only three months left until Nationals in December, and one until the first competition of the Grand Prix, Skate America. Enjolras doesn’t even want to think about what kind of arguing Courfeyrac is going to have to do with ISU to allow them to be able to compete in the first place, what strings he’s going to have to pull, but sooner or later they’re going to have to announce an official partnership, and declare an intent to compete. There’s an urgency at their rehearsals, because they may be on the same page but that doesn’t mean they don’t make mistakes, and Grantaire refuses to let them forget even for a second that if they aren’t skating the Grand Prix, they won’t _be_ anybody, and that will make Nationals that much harder. Without Nationals there will go their chances for Four Continents, for Worlds, for the rest of their careers, essentially.

Grantaire refuses to let them forget a lot of things; he’s snappy and waspish and shows up to rehearsals hungover and nursing a suspicious opaque waterbottle, and all of this Éponine seems used to, but Enjolras doesn’t like it. For how well he gets on with Éponine, his relationship with Grantaire is seriously strained, and he can’t tell if it’s his fault or Grantaire’s fault or the fault of the circumstance at large. He asks Éponine while they’re walking back to the rink and she snorts into her dirty chai and calls him an idiot. This only baffles him a little bit, but he suffers quietly through Grantaire’s never-ending criticisms; he corrects his posture, he tightens his hold on Éponine’s leg, he locks his elbows, and he turns faster. He’s determined to make it so that Grantaire has nothing to criticize, and he doesn’t know who he’s trying to prove something to, but it pays off, because he notices a difference in his technique in just four weeks.

Courfeyrac calls them to the rink an hour early on a Tuesday in September, exactly twenty-eight days out from Skate America. Enjolras doesn’t pretend to know what’s going through his friend’s brain, because Courfeyrac has been an enigma since he was seven years old, but shows up with coffee and a hard-boiled egg at six-thirty in the morning for whatever is happening.

Six-thirty is still the hockey team’s time for the gym, and they are in full swing working out to loud music and the sound of crashing weights. Enjolras waves to Bahorel and Feuilly, who are boxing in the ring, and nurses his coffee in silence. Éponine is on her way, she’d texted him, and Courfeyrac is nowhere to be seen, but Enjolras is surprised to see Grantaire dancing on the mat, the only space that isn’t occupied by the hockey players.  Enjolras hasn’t seen Grantaire up this early or this sober, ever, and he hangs around the edge of the mat, waiting for his new coach to notice him.

While he’s watching he can’t help but notice that Grantaire has good form—excellent, really— and he’s willing to bet that there’s a hell of a lot of professional training behind it. There are thick cords of muscle in his arms, and he has ice-skater-calves, but above anything else, Grantaire understands the music; he moves with it in a way that is intuitive to dancers, without hesitating between steps, one position flowing seamlessly into another. Enjolras realizes he’s never seen Grantaire skate before, not even during rehearsals, when he prefers to stand to the side and yell his critiques, and allow Courfeyrac to implement them on the ice, but he’s willing to bet that if Grantaire’s skating is even half as good as his dancing, then he must be pretty damn good.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to stare?” Grantaire says, joining him at the edge of the mat and drinking from a waterbottle.

Enjolras jerks out of his reverie; _had he really been staring?_ “We’re in a sport where all we ever do is stare at our competitors. You can’t fault me,” he says, recovering smoothly.

Grantaire grunts in reply, and slips his feet into his tennis shoes.

“You’re early,” Enjolras remarks. Grantaire grunts in acknowledgement again, and Enjolras bites his tongue to keep in the remark about how he’s sober, too. Instead, he tells him, “you dance very well.”

“Thank you,” Grantaire says, and Enjolras detects a note of sincerity in his voice, so he takes it as a win. He wants to ask Grantaire why he doesn’t skate with them, why he seems to hate him, why he’s always drunk or late or both, but he thinks that these are at least Level Five Friend Questions, and he’s a Level Two, at best.

He doesn’t have a chance, anyway, because Éponine chooses that moment to arrive in a flurry of commotion. Enjolras and Grantaire hear her before they see her, and they heave a sigh in unison and turn around to catch sight of her tripping over a barbell and snapping at the hockey player who tries to catch her. She picks herself up, recovers her miraculously un-spilled coffee, and picks her way through the gym, glaring at anyone in her way.

She’s holding her phone to her ear in one hand, talking angrily in rapid Spanish, and with the other she’s holding her coffee and also managing to do a fair amount of gesticulating. Enjolras snatches the thermos before it can do any more damage and raises an eyebrow, but she waves a hand at him. She hangs up with a final _“claro!”_ and a huff, and recovers her coffee from him.

“Good morning,” she says, pressing a kiss to Grantaire’s cheek, and then one to Enjolras’s. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

“Z?” Grantaire asks, and Éponine rolls her eyes so hard Enjolras thinks they might fall out of her head.

Z is short for Azelma, Éponine’s little sister, whom Enjolras has heard little about. From what he can tell she’s been caught up in the “wrong crowd,” and has little to no interest in turning over a new leaf. Éponine hasn’t offered any more details than that, and Enjolras doesn’t press, so he can only guess what this morning’s angry phone call had been about.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says, and both Enjolras and Grantaire nod. “Where’s Courfeyrac?”

As if on cue, Courfeyrac appears from the training room, pushing a whiteboard covered in messy handwriting in front of him and smiling far too brightly for six-thirty on a Tuesday morning. “I’m here!” he declares, quite unnecessarily, as he comes to a stop before them.

“Why are we here so early?” Éponine asks, but Courfeyrac cuts her off with a finger against her lips. Enjolras worries that she might bite it.

“Hush, _ma cherie,_ I have news!”

Éponine looks so astounded at the wild look in Courfeyrac’s eyes that she stays silent, and he smiles, if possible, even bigger.

“Today is a big day,” he says, assuming a grand tone and standing tall. Enjolras is far too used to his dramatics to be surprised, but Éponine’s eyebrows are still maintaining their position high on her forehead. Grantaire seems unfazed.

“Did you sleep here last night?” Éponine asks, narrowing her eyes. “You’re wearing the same clothes as yesterday.”

“Sleep is a loose term,” Courfeyrac says, waving her comment aside. “I was, indeed, here all night, but for good reason! I was here because I was working on your song selections for the Grand Prix!”

Enjolras feels his heart lift, because he hadn’t admitted it to himself, but a small part of him had been afraid that they wouldn’t be able to compete. But somehow Courfeyrac, _miraculous Courfeyrac,_ had managed to make everything work and Enjolras had never loved his friend more than that moment. Courfeyrac sweeps him into a hug and he finds himself reciprocating, and then Éponine is jumping onto his back, and even Grantaire is consenting to join the pile-up. The hockey players have stopped their workout to pay attention to the scene, and they’re all cheering too, and Enjolras is breathing again because _they’re going to compete, he didn’t ruin it all he has another chance._

It’s several minutes before everyone comes down from the excitement, and when they finally disentangle themselves from their group hug, it’s only for the hockey team to descend on them and thump them on the backs. Enjolras can’t stop smiling, and Éponine and Grantaire and tangled together, hugging so tight he thinks they might be trying to break each other’s backs, and everything feels _good._

“Okay, okay, okay,” Éponine says, several breathless minutes later. “So, we’re competing the Grand Prix circuit. But what are our song choices?”

Courfeyrac directs their attention to the whiteboard, and upon closer inspection Enjolras can see that the scribbles are actually diagrams and notes on patterns. “Short program compulsory pattern is Golden Waltz, and I’ve decided that for the original portion we’re doing a waltz, too. Now, I need you to not freak out when I tell you the song we're doing.”

“Deal,” Enjolras says, warily, and Éponine nods.

“I don't usually like choreographing ice dance to stuff with lyrics,” Courfeyrac says, “I prefer to leave that to the figure skaters. But since this partnership is already shocking everybody, I think that our whole image should be about toeing the line a little bit. The waltz is going to be to "War of Hearts" by Ruelle.” He holds up a hand when both Enjolras and Éponine open their mouths to argue. "You promised not to freak out! We're allowed lyrics, now, since 2014, but it's something that neither of you have ever done. "War of Hearts" is in three-four time, it fits the tempo, it's intense, it's raw, it's going to be incredible."

Enjolras shakes his head, but when Courfeyrac has his heart set on something, there's no changing it. He decides to point out the other flaw in the plan for their short dance, instead. “A waltz for both sections? That doesn’t really show off our diversity.”

“I thought you’d notice that,” Courfeyrac says. “Which is why for our free dance, I decided we need a little bit more _emotion._ Bahorel, music!” he yells, and suddenly Celine Dion is blasting through the gym as Courfeyrac flips the whiteboard to reveal a dry-erase masterpiece (probably the real reason he’d been here all night) with the words “LYRICAL” written in hot pink marker, accompanied by a shitty rendering of the poster for the movie _Titanic_.

Enjolras is used to Courfeyrac’s theatrics by now, and it is with practiced care that he doesn’t react the way Éponine does to this revelation: with an expression caught somewhere between shock, horror, and disbelief.

“How long did it take you to do that?” Grantaire asks, casually. “I left at two.”

“However long it’s been since two,” Courfeyrac says, still grinning. “Next question.”

Éponine recovers enough to pick her jaw up off the ground, and narrows her eyes at Courfeyrac. “You’re kidding,” she says, then turns to Enjolras, “he’s kidding, right?”

Courfeyrac shakes his head, and Éponine pales. “We can’t do _Titanic_ at an _ice dancing_ competition, Courfeyrac,” she says, “Sure, we'll dance a waltz to a contemporary song with words. Fine. I can get behind that. But _lyrical!_ Do you _want_ them to hate us?”

“I’ve spent all night researching this,” Courfeyrac says. “The rules say you must have a beat and you must skate to that beat, and skate to the character of the music. This is going to differentiate you guys. The audience will love it, and the skating is going to be so incredible that the judges will _have_ to love it. You’re brilliant skaters, but doing a program jam packed with feeling isn’t something that either of you are known for doing in your old teams, and it will be entirely fresh. Nobody will be expecting raw emotion, because Enjolras and Cosette never did it, and neither did you and Montparnasse, Éponine. You impressed people with your skating, not your acting. I told you, we're defining this partnership by pushing the envelope. If we start off with ballet pieces or edgy tango numbers that show off only technique, everyone will just think that Enjolras is trying to be Montparnasse, or you're trying to be Cosette. They won't respect you for Thenardier and Enjolras, but for halves of Thenardier and Minette, and Fauchelevent and Enjolras. Lyrical is new, unfamiliar, and it will give you an edge. Doing it will make you a force to be reckoned with.”

Enjolras has to admit that Courfeyrac makes several very good points, but Éponine remains unconvinced.

“How are you so calm?” she asks Enjolras. “We can’t skate to _Titanic!_ We’ve never done it!”

“You’ve never skated together at all,” Courfeyrac points out, but Éponine ignores him, her eyes trained on Enjolras.

“I’ve known Courfeyrac since I was five years old,” Enjolras says, “you learn to accept his theatrics.” He levels his gaze at Courfeyrac now. “You also learn that he understands this sport better than anyone. You’re sure this is a good idea?”

Courfeyrac’s face smooths over into as close as serious as he’s going to get, and nods once. “Trust me,” he says.

“I do,” Enjolras says, and nods his head too. “I’m on board.”

“Grantaire?” Éponine asks, turning to their coach for help.

Grantaire has been quietly watching this unfold from next to Éponine, and has yet to contribute his thoughts to the matter. His face is impassive, and Enjolras wonders if he’s going to shoot Courfeyrac down, but recalls that they had already come to the conclusion together before sharing it. He knows his answer before he says it.

“I agree with Courfeyrac.”

“R,” she says, “I don’t even know _how_ to be lyrical!”

“Then it’s high time you learn,” Grantaire replies, and turns his back on them. “If you’re not on the ice in ten minutes, it’s twenty laps!” 

Éponine throws her hands in the air, and Courfeyrac gives a gleeful whoop and a fist pump.

“Can I turn off the music?” Bahorel yells over the pennywhistle solo in “My Heart Will Go On.”

x

 

The hockey team has graciously agreed to share the ice this morning, and so Courfeyrac orders that Enjolras and Éponine forego a morning strength workout in favor of running drills alongside the hockey team. It’s entertaining to watch Éponine skate circles around the men, and Enjolras is glad that she's starting to feel at home here. It’s clear she’s still unhappy about the song choices, though, by the way she skates in silence, except for an expletive in Grantaire’s direction when he tells her that her legs aren’t straight. When they break to stretch so that the hockey team can have some time to run plays, Enjolras approaches her.

“You’re sulking,” he remarks, taking off his skates and sitting with his legs straight before him.

She ignores his comment, but settles with her feet against his, and reaches for his hands.

“I know you think I should have stood by you,” he says, pulling gently so that she stretches towards him.

“We _are_ partners,” she says, sinking further into her stretch until her nose touches her knees.

“Courfeyrac has never failed me,” he says. “He’s an excellent choreographer, and he really does understand how to play to both the audience and the judges.” She sits back up, leaning back this time so that he is pulled forward. His hamstrings groan, but in a good way.

She stays quiet, but when she releases him from the stretch she meets his eyes. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asks.

He doesn’t know whether she’s talking about the music choices or their partnership as a whole, but he finds his answer is the same for both questions.

“Yes.”

She sighs and shakes her head softly, but it’s with a fond smile this time as they adjust into a middle split.

“If you say so.”

 

x

 

They’re lucky that the step sequence Courfeyrac has picked for the original portion of the short dance is a waltz. The steps are no problem, for the most part simple and straightforward, and they’ve been working on the pattern for the compulsory portion since before they officially announced their intent to compete. All they have left to do is clean and polish everything and add music. Their lifts need work, but that comes with the territory of trust issues and new partners; Enjolras has no doubt that they’ll get it down in the next four weeks. Courfeyrac wasn't lying about the song; it's intensity is a level that Enjolras is unfamiliar with, but Éponine is more than ready to step up to the plate, so he is too. He thinks they're looking alright—clean lines and big movements, footwork perfectly in step and posture straight backed and tight.

Grantaire is not so easily satisfied, though, because despite the fact that Enjolras is working his hardest and straightening his knees, stilling his shaking arm, making even his god damn fingers look beautiful splayed across Éponine’s back, Grantaire is still barking corrections at him. Enjolras is beginning to think he does it just to spite him, because he doesn’t want to admit that Grantaire’s tough-love mentality works. He finds himself more eager than ever to master steps, and they’ve nearly finished the choreography for the short dance in entirety by the time one o’clock rolls around and Courfeyrac calls them over to the edge of the rink.

“Let’s call it a day,” he says, and Enjolras is shocked.

“What?” he asks, accepting a bottle of water from Éponine and leaning against the railing. “We find out we’re competing, decide on music, _and_ get started on choreography, and you want to call it a day at _one?_ The last time we left the rink before dark was when we were Juniors.”

“I’m announcing your partnership at six tonight. ISU knows, and all the competitions I’ve scheduled you for know. It’s only a matter of time before it gets out to the public,” Courfeyrac says. “I figured you two might want to discuss that with some people before then.”

 _Cosette,_ Enjolras thinks. Courfeyrac doesn’t have to say it. He hasn’t really spoken to Cosette much since the accident, besides a phone call or two to check in on her recovery. Not because he hasn’t wanted to, or because he thinks she’s even mad at him, but because he’d simply gotten so busy with rehearsing with Éponine that all thought of anything other than _skating, skating, skating_ had been swept from his mind. He feels awful that his first visit to his ex-partner—and one of his oldest friends—is going to be to inform her that he’s found someone new to skate with, but he’d rather Cosette find out from him than from the evening news.

“Éponine, I’ve called Rikers and let them know that you’ll be coming to speak to Montparnasse about official business,” Courfeyrac is saying when Enjolras begins paying attention to the conversation again. “We’ve arranged so that you can meet in private—with several guards, of course—but you won’t be in a visiting area, and you won’t have to speak through a glass partition.”

“Excuse me?” Éponine snaps, and Courfeyrac looks taken aback. “You did _what?_ ”

“I- I thought you’d prefer speaking to him face to face, y’know, instead of over the phone or something,” he says slowly.

“What made you think I’d want to speak to him at all?” Éponine asks. Enjolras can tell she’s struggling to keep her composure, because she’d already snapped at Courfeyrac about the music, but it seems to be slipping rapidly.

“He’s your ex-partner, and your ex-boyfriend. Don’t you think he should hear this news from you?”

“I don’t have anything to say to him,” she says. With that, she leaves the ice and disappears into the girl’s locker room.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Grantaire sighs.

“Courfeyrac was only trying to help,” Enjolras snaps, before Courfeyrac himself can say anything. “He didn’t know she’d take it this way.”

Grantaire just shakes her head and follows after Éponine.

“It’s okay,” Enjolras says, putting a hand on Courfeyrac’s shoulder. “She’ll come around.”

Courfeyrac rubs his forehead, and Enjolras can see in the set of his shoulders how tired his friend is. It occurs to him that Courfeyrac been at the rink all night, had spent the past month choreographing dances and arranging music all in the hopes that they’d be able to compete, and then had undoubtedly lobbied on behalf of them to the ISU, quite successfully, apparently.

“Hey,” he says. “Go home. Get some sleep. I’ll take care of this, and I’ll bring takeout for dinner. Combeferre’s at eight?”

“Chinese?” Courfeyrac mumbles.

“Sweet and sour chicken and fried rice,” Enjolras smiles, and with a brief hug, departs the ice.

 

x

 

Rikers is the most depressing place Enjolras has ever been in, including his childhood home. The fluorescent lighting flickers, there are bars on the window, and he has yet to see one employee smile. He supposes that he wouldn’t smile much either, if he worked at a prison.

“Ansel Enjolras, here to see Montparnasse Minette,” he tells a woman at the front desk, and she frowns at the sheet of paper before her.

“I was told Éponine Thenardier would be here for Monsieur Minette,” she says.

“Madamoiselle Thenardier fell ill at the last second, I’m here on her behalf. I called on the way over?”

She frowns at her notes again, then seems satisfied. “ID please?”

He slides over his driver’s license and looks around the waiting room again while she fills out some forms. The doors all have electronic locks, and there are a few outdated magazines sitting next to an uncomfortable looking bench.

“Sign here, and follow the guard, please.”

Enjolras signs his name and follows a large man through one of the doors. The man has to scan his ID badge and type in several codes before they’re allowed through, and in the next room Enjolras is patted down and relieved of his wallet, keys, belt, and shoelaces. Several more locked doors sees him sitting in a chair that’s bolted to the ground in a room with three guards and no windows, waiting for the door to open again.

He remembers Montparnasse always being remarkably beautiful on the ice, and even prison hasn’t done anything to diminish that. He’s tall and slim, with high cheekbones and dark hair that falls just perfectly in his face, and even though he’s not made up for a competition his lips are still red. He and Éponine had truly made a very attractive couple, walking the line between devil-may-care and professional ice dancers better than anyone else could dream of doing.

Montparnasse almost manages to look unsurprised when he walks in and sees Enjolras, but Enjolras has spent too long watching his face as their scores were announced to know the difference between unsurprised and actively-hiding-surprise-with-fake-impassivity. His eyebrows quirk in the slightest amount, and there’s just a hint of a muscle twitching in his jaw, but he allows the guard to lead him to the seat across from Enjolras, and slumps in it with the air of someone who’s only present because he has nothing better to do.

The guard joins the others against the wall, and Montparnasse quirks an eyebrow. Enjolras thinks he would cross his arms if his handcuffs permitted it.

“You’re not Éponine.” is all Montparnasse says.

“She got sick at the last minute.”

Montparnasse scoffs. “You don’t have to lie”

“Fine,” Enjolras says, his voice cold. “She didn’t want to come.”

If this hurts Montparnasse, he doesn’t show it, but continues on speaking as if nothing is out of the ordinary; as if they aren’t sitting in a windowless room in a prison with four guards watching them; as if the whole world hasn’t been turned upside down in the past four months; as if they’re just trash talking each other before a competition like _normal_. “I must say, this is a surprise. I never expected my old rival to pay me well wishes in prison. Or did you come to thank me? I suppose with Éponine and I out of competition, you and Cosette are shoe-ins for Worlds this year.”

 _Ah, right._ Enjolras chews on his next words, debating how to best approach the subject. Montparnasse has laid it out on the table for him—all he has to do is come out and say it—but somehow that feels wrong.

Montparnasse continues before he has a chance to say anything at all, though, so he sits quietly and waits for his chance. “I guess I’m confused why you two are in contact to begin with. Is she so desperate to still be a part of the skating world that she’s taken to bumming around your rink? Don’t tell me she’s competing _solo._ ”

 _This is your chance,_ Enjolras thinks, and he takes a deep breath and grabs it. “Actually, quite the opposite. I’m her new partner.”

Montparnasse’s feet slam on the ground as he pitches forward so suddenly that two of the guards also leap forth, ready to grab him in case of a brawl, but it’s genuine shock on his features this time, and not any malicious intent.

“ _Excuse me?_ ”

Enjolras repeats himself. “I’m her new partner.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you got caught in a cocaine bust and almost ruined her career?”

“What about Cosette?”

“She broke her hip. She won’t be competing anymore.”

“What happened?”

Enjolras hesitates for a millisecond. “She fell.”

“You dropped her,” Montparnasse counters.

It’s Enjolras’s turn to be surprised, and he narrows his eyes at Montparnasse, who smirks because he knows Enjolras’s silence means he hit the nail on the head.

“Let me get this straight: you dropped your partner of ten years, injuring her and effectively ending her career, and now you’re picking up _my_ partner— _and girlfriend—_ and are going to skate together?”

“Seems about right.”

Montparnasse keeps a straight face for about two seconds before he actually lunges at Enjolras this time. Enjolras is ready to throw a punch back (he tells himself its self-defense and nothing to do with the fact that Montparnasse has been goading him for literal _years_ and has _finally_ given him a chance to fight back), but two guards grab Montparnasse’s shoulders before he can even touch Enjolras, and haul him backwards.

“I swear to God I will _knock your teeth in,_ Enjolras,” Montparnasse snarls. “She’s my _partner!_ My _girlfriend!_ I _care_ about her! Do you have any respect for this sport—for _her—_ at all? Do you think that you can just _drop_ your partner, and _critically injure her,_ and I’d be all fine and happy about you partnering up with Éponine instead? What makes you think you’re so deserving of a second chance? And with the best ice dancer in the United States? In the _world?_ ”

Enjolras bites his lip, but holds up a hand to stop the guards from taking Montparnasse away just yet.

“Look,” he says, “I feel awful about what happened with Cosette. Not a day goes by on the rink when I don’t think about that. But this was as much Éponine’s decision as it was mine. You really fucked up, Montparnasse. You shouldn’t have done what you did, and you shouldn’t have almost dragged her down with you. Maybe I don’t deserve this second chance, but she most definitely does, and I’ll be damned if I don’t skate the best I can to make sure she gets it.”

Montparnasse narrows his eyes. “I swear to _God,_ if you drop her, I’ll—”

Enjolras holds up a hand to silence him. “Trust me, I already know.”

Montparnasse just shakes his head and nods towards the door, sparing Enjolras one more glare before it slams shut behind him.

 

x

 

The apartment that Marius and Cosette share is made of sunlight. When he walks inside, Enjolras feels like he’s walked into a sun-soaked meadow, partially because the living room has a lot of yellow, and partially because every available surface is covered in flowers from people wishing Cosette well. Marius hugs him, and Enjolras is relieved because he’d partly thought that Marius would hate him for injuring Cosette, but it appears that his friend is just happy to see him, and Enjolras finds himself sinking into the embrace a little bit.

“She’ll be so happy you finally stopped by,” Marius says, and even though he knows he means no harm by the statement Enjolras still feels a sharp stab of guilt in his abdomen. “She’s in the bedroom, you can go on back. I’ll put the kettle on.”

 _You were busy,_ he tells himself. _You still should have made time for her,_ the louder part of his mind says.

Cosette is sitting up in bed, and when she sees him she is positively radiant.

“Enj!” she cries, reaching her hands for him, and Enjolras takes them, pressing a kiss to each cheek and sitting in the chair that’s at her bedside. “How are you?”

Enjolras smiles and bobs his head. “I’m…” He sighs. Runs a hand through his hair, presses his face into his hands. He’s never been able to lie to Cosette. The only people who know him better are Combeferre and Courfeyrac, and he’s shit at lying to them too.

Cosette frowns and runs a hand through his hair, her fingers scratching absently at his scalp in the way he adores. “What’s wrong?” she asks.

Enjolras decides the only way he can have this conversation is by being straightforward, and so he meets her eyes and steels himself. “I’ve got a new partner.”

He’s expecting sadness, or anger, or possibly some horrible mixture of the two that involves tears. What he’s _not_ expecting is for her to say, “that’s wonderful, Enjolras. I’m happy for you.”

He meets her eyes and he sees it—the sadness he knew would be there—but it’s overpowered by genuine joy and love and he mentally kicks himself for ever having thought that this absolute ray of sunshine could ever begrudge him for finding a new partner.

“You don’t have to be,” he says, quickly, squeezing her hand between his own.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, patting his cheek with her other hand. “Of course I’m happy for you. You’re too good to stop skating because of me.”

“It’s not your fault,” he mumbles, lowering his eyes again. “I’m the one who dropped you. It’s my fault I had to find a new partner to begin with.”

“Neither of you can take full responsibility for what happened,” Marius says, appearing in the doorway bearing a tray of tea. He fixes Cosette a cup with honey, and stirs two sugar cubes into Enjolras’s. “It was an _accident._ Nobody’s at fault.”

“When did you get so wise?” Cosette says, gently tugging him down for a kiss. Marius hums in response, and pulls up a chair on the other side of the bed, balancing the tea tray on Cosette’s knees.

Enjolras sips at his tea and it’s a true testament to Marius’s character that he always keeps a box of Enjolras’s favorite lemon ginger tea on hand, even though nobody else will drink it when they come over.

“So, who’s the lucky new girl, hmm?” Cosette asks, prodding Enjolras in the side and causing him to come back to reality.

“Excuse me?”

“Your new skating partner, Enjolras,” Cosette says, rolling her eyes with a fond smile.

“Ah, right,” he takes a too-big gulp of his tea and winces when it burns his throat. “It’s—ah—Éponine. Éponine Thenardier.”

Marius’s eyebrows disappear into his hair as he and Cosette exchange a look. Clearly neither of them want to say what they’re both thinking: _rival, drug bust, criminal._

“She wasn’t involved,” Enjolras says before anyone can bring it up. “She was cleared in the trial and… we talked about it.”

“Is she nice?” Cosette asks.

“Surprisingly so.”

“And her coach? Grantaire, right?” Marius presses.

Enjolras hesitates here. “I’m… not sure he really likes me. But he hasn’t told me to beat it, yet, so that must mean something. Right?”

Cosette smiles and pats his hand. “You’re a brilliant skater, Enjolras. He’s always had a bad attitude.”

Enjolras shrugs it off—this is a conversation for a different time—and takes another sip of his tea.

There’re another several minutes of the three of them sipping their tea in silence as the late afternoon setting sun paints the walls of the room a brilliant gradient of colors. When Cosette speaks again, it’s in a soft and small voice, the sadness that Enjolras knows she’s working so hard to keep concealed managing to peak through.

“Is she good?” she asks.

“She’s not you,” Enjolras assures her.

“She’s better,” she says, and shushes him when he goes to contradict her. “It’s okay, we’ve always known it. This makes sense, Enjolras. I’m glad it’s happening to you. Of course I wish that this hadn’t happened, and that it was me skating with you, but you’ve worked too hard to just stop. I wish you two the best.” She kisses his hand, and Marius gives her other hand a squeeze while he sniffles. “Oh, stop crying,” she tells him, letting go of Enjolras to kiss her fiancé again.

“I wish it was you, too,” Marius says, softly.

Enjolras feels his throat close uncomfortably, and Cosette must sense this because she shushes Marius before the conversation can continue.

“Nobody wanted this to happen,” she says, “but sometimes life has other plans. We’ll both be cheering you on from here, Enjolras. You _and_ Éponine.”

Enjolras smiles, because it’s all he _can_ do, and stands. “I should go,” he says, and gathers up their dirty dishes.

“Don’t worry about those, Marius will do them,” Cosette says, and the smile is back on her face as she takes Enjolras’s hand again. “Good luck. We’ll see you at ABC meetings soon, okay?”

Enjolras nods, and sees himself out of the bedroom. He pauses to look at some of the flower arrangements that adorn the living room, and sees his own tucked next to Cosette’s favorite reading chair. His heart warms a little bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> war of hearts is actually six-eight but who's counting

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @montponine and if you like this, check out my actual (full length!) ya novel "love, ellory" on kindle or ibooks! (it has like, a plot, and characters that I came up with on my own, it's wild)


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